The Mystery of the Headless Horse (2 page)

As they ran from the barn, the Investigators could faintly smell smoke in the air. Two men stood in the yard waving and shouting.

“Pico! Diego! There!”

“Beyond the dam!”

Pico went pale. From the corral, everyone could see a column of smoke rising into the cloudy sky from the dry brown mountains to the north. It signalled the most deadly danger of all in the thick mesquite and chaparral of the canyons of southern California — a brush fire!

“We called the firemen and the forest station!” one of the two men shouted. “Hurry, get shovels and axes!”

“We must ride out!” the other yelled. “Get your horses!”

“Use our truck!” Jupiter cried.

“Yes!” Pico agreed. “Shovels and axes are in the barn!”

Big Hans ran to start the truck while everyone else grabbed tools from the barn. Diego and Uncle Titus jumped into the cab with Hans. The others swarmed into the open back, where they stood holding tightly to the sides as the truck took off. Breathlessly, Pico introduced the two men who had given the alarm.

“Our friends Leo Guerra and Porfirio Huerta. For many generations their families worked for Hacienda Alvaro. Now Leo and Porfirio have small houses up the road and work in town. But they still help us on our rancho.”

The two short, black-haired men greeted the boys politely, then looked anxiously ahead over the truck cab as Hans turned towards the mountains along the narrow dirt road through the Alvaro ranch. Their wind-creased, leathery faces were worried, and they rubbed their hands nervously on their old, patched jeans.

As the truck drove north the smoke thickened, almost blotting out the cloudy sunlight. The Investigators were dimly aware of passing a large vegetable garden with irrigation ditches, then a group of horses racing southwards in a field. At first the dirt road ran parallel to the dry arroyo and the ridges. Then, as it reached the mountains ahead, it forked. The fire was clearly up the right fork. Hans hurled the truck along the rutted road towards the spreading smoke. The road angled in towards the dry arroyo, which soon came to an abrupt end in the base of a high, rocky ridge. Just beyond this point the ridge itself ended, and then the truck was passing an old stone dam on the right. Below the dam, the dry bed of Santa Inez Creek curved away to the south-east along the far side of the ridge. Behind the dam was the reservoir — no more than a narrow pond at the foot of a low mountain. As the truck raced around the pond, flames became visible leaping up through the smoke ahead.

“Stop here!” Pico yelled from the back of the truck.

The truck screeched to a halt less than a hundred yards from the advancing fire, and everyone piled out.

“Spread out as wide as you can!” Pico ordered. “Try to dig a break in the brush. Throw dirt towards the flames. Maybe we can force the fire towards the pond! Hurry!”

The fire burned in a wide semi-circle on both sides of the creek above the dam pond. It was an eerie line of advancing black, with smoke towering and spreading above and flames leaping like half-hidden devils below. One instant there would be live grey-green brush, and the next there was only blackened ash.

“At least there’s not much wind!” Pete yelled. “Dig, guys!”

They spread out in front of the slowly advancing fire on the left side of the creek, and began to cut down small trees, clear brush, dig a shallow trench, and throw the dirt towards the fire.

“Look!” Bob pointed across the creek. “It’s Skinny and that manager, Cody!”

Across the creek Skinny, the ranch manager Cody, and a lot of other men poured out of the Norris ranch wagon and two other trucks. With axes and shovels they began to fight the fire on that side. Jupiter saw that even Mr. Norris was there, waving his arms and bawling orders.

The two groups, barely visible to each other through the smoke and flames, battled the fire alone for what seemed like hours. But judging by the height of the sun, which showed occasionally through the smoke and darkening clouds, the Investigators knew it was less than half an hour before the whole fire-fighting power of the county was there.

The men of the forest service moved in with chemical tanks and bulldozers. Sheriff’s deputies joined the Alvaro and Norris forces. Fire trucks from all the departments of Rocky Beach and the county roared through the dry brush on every side. Pumper trucks backed up to the pond and creek, and soon powerful streams of water hit the advancing fire.

The civilian trucks on both sides of the creek were commandeered to bring up waiting volunteers. The Investigators watched Hans drive off in the salvage-yard truck. Across the creek, the Norris trucks and ranch wagon raced south towards the county road.

Helicopters and old World War II bombers swooped in low over the flames and smoke, dropping tanks of water and red fire-retardant chemicals. Some of the planes made their runs over parts of the fire out of sight over the mountain. Others swept in directly over the fire fighters, drenching them.

For another hour the battle seemed hopeless. The fire burned steadily on and on. The fire fighters had to keep retreating to avoid being overcome by smoke. But the absence of wind, and the prompt action of everyone on the Alvaro and Norris ranches, slowly began to tell. The fire finally seemed to hesitate. Still burning furiously, covering the entire sky and land with heavy smoke, the fire seemed to mark time, to march in place like a stalled army.

Stalled, but not stopped! And the trucks continued to drive back and forth between the fire and the distant county road to bring up more volunteers.

“Keep working!” the fire captains shouted grimly. “It can still break loose any second!”

Ten minutes later Jupiter straightened up wearily to wipe his sweating face. He felt something hit his cheek and suddenly shouted:

“Rain! Pico! Uncle Titus! It’s raining!”

Big drops of rain fell slowly all around. The long line of fire fighters paused and stared upwards. Then the sky seemed to open, and a deluge engulfed their smoke-blackened faces. A ragged cheer went up and down the line as the fire hissed and steamed.

“Rain!” Bob exulted, his soot-streaked face turned up, as the torrential downpour went on. Thunder boomed every once in a while.

Smoke drifted everywhere, and pockets of flame continued to lick at the charred slopes, but the danger was over. The volunteers began to pack up and move out, leaving the firemen and forest service to mop up.

Blackened, wet and weary, the Alvaro forces gathered on the dirt road by the dam pond. Hans had not yet returned from his latest mission in the salvage-yard truck. The downpour began to slacken into a steady drizzle, and the late afternoon sky brightened a little.

“Come,” Pico said. “We will walk back. It is less than a mile, and we will be warmer if we keep moving.”

Tired, wet, but happy, the Investigators trooped down the road with the others. The narrow dirt road, muddy from the rain, was packed with trucks and volunteers all moving slowly south. Ahead loomed the high ridge that separated Santa Inez Creek from the dry arroyo.

Pico eyed the crowded, muddy road and led his group off to the left.

“There is a faster and more pleasant way to return to the hacienda,” he explained to the Investigators and Uncle Titus.

They skirted the dam and found themselves on a large, brush-covered mound at the base of the high ridge. It was this mound that blocked the arroyo on the west side of the ridge. A faint path led down to the creek bed, thirty feet below the dam. Before walking down it, everyone turned to look back. The whole countryside on both sides of the creek above the dam was a charred waste.

“Burned land will not hold water,” Leo Guerra said grimly. “If the rain goes on, there will be floods.”

Chastened, the group walked down the mound and along the bank of the now muddy creek bed. On the far bank was the dirt road that went through the Norris Ranch. It, too, was crowded with vehicles and fire fighters returning to the county road. The Investigators saw the Norris ranch wagon drive slowly past. Skinny was in the back with some other people. He saw the boys across the creek bed, but even he was too tired to react.

“Is that Norris land right over there?” Bob asked.

Pico nodded. “The creek is our boundary from the county road until just before the dam. Then the boundary goes north-east a short distance into the mountains. The dam and the creek above it are all on our land.”

The high, rocky ridge on the group’s right now dipped low. Beyond it the Investigators could see the whole series of ridges leading south. Pico turned away from the creek bed to follow a grassy trail through the small hills. Everyone strung out single file on the trail, enjoying the sight of unburned land. Low brush grew sparsely on the ridges, with brown rocks showing in between. Smoke still hung everywhere, but the rain had nearly stopped. The sun broke through the clouds once and then set.

Pete still had the energy to walk briskly, and Jupiter was too impatient a person to dawdle. The two boys soon found themselves in the lead. As they climbed the trail up the side of the last ridge, Pete and Jupiter were ten or, twenty yards ahead of the others.

“Jupe!” Pete cried, pointing upwards.

High on the ridge above them, through the drifting smoke, a man rode a great black horse! In the twilight, the boys stared up at the rearing horse, its massive hoofs pawing the smoke-filled air, its head…

“It — it — ” Jupiter stammered, “ — it’s got no head!”

Rearing on the ridge, the great horse was headless!

“Run!” Pete yelled.

The headless horse seemed to leap towards them through the smoke!

Bob and Diego ran up as Pete and Jupiter turned to flee. Further back, Uncle Titus, Pico, Leo Guerra, and Porfirio Huerta hurried along the narrow trail through the ridges.

“It’s got no head!” Pete yelled. “A ghost! Run!”

Bob stopped and stared up at the black horse and rider as the smoke thinned. His eyes widened.

“Jupe, Pete, it’s just — ” Bob began.

Diego laughed loudly. “It’s the Cortés statue, fellows! The smoke made it look like it was moving!”

“It can’t be Cortés!” Pete cried. “That statue of yours had a head!”

“Head?” Diego gaped. “Why, the horse’s head is gone! Someone’s broken our statue! Pico!”

“I see it,” Pico said as he arrived with the others. “Let’s take a look.”

They swarmed up the smoky ridge to the wooden statue. The trunks of both the horse and rider had been crudely carved from single blocks of wood, with the legs, arms, sword, and saddle carved separately and attached. The horse was painted black, trimmed with the red and yellow of Castile. Under the high saddle, daubs of paint suggested an ornamental covering on the horse. The rider was painted black, too, except for a yellow beard, blue eyes, and red trim on his armour. All of the paint was faded.

“The statue used to be painted regularly,” Diego explained, “but we haven’t been able to take care of it right for a long time. I think the wood is getting rotten now.”

In the grass beside the horse lay the broken-off head, its open mouth a faded red. Pico pointed to a heavy metal container on the ground nearby.

“There’s what knocked the head off. It’s a cylinder of chemicals for fire fighting. It must have fallen out of a plane or helicopter that passed over the statue.”

Pete crouched down to study the head. The long wooden piece included most of the horse’s neck, too. It had broken off cleanly. Both head and neck were hollow, as if the carver had wanted to lessen the weight of the wood before pegging it to the horse’s body. Something projected slightly from the end of the hollow neck. Pete reached inside and pulled it out.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Let’s see,” Jupiter said, taking the object.

It was a long, thin cylinder of leather with dull metal fittings, hollow inside.

“It looks,” Jupiter said slowly, “like a sword scabbard. You know, what a sword is carried in, the way a pistol is carried in a holster. Only — ”

“Only it’s too big inside,” Bob said. “A sword would sure rattle around inside that.”

“And there are no hooks to hang it from a belt,” Jupe added.

“Let me see it,” Pico said, taking the cylinder. He nodded. “Jupiter is partly right. It’s not a sword scabbard, but it is a sword cover. It went over the scabbard to protect a valuable sword when it wasn’t being worn. The cover looks quite old.”

“Old? Valuable?” Diego was suddenly excited. “Maybe it was the cover of the Cortés Sword! Pete, look in the head — ”

Pete was already searching inside the broken head. Then he examined the whole statue. He shook his head.

“Nothing else inside the head and neck, and the bodies and legs are all solid.”

“Foolishness, Diego,” Pico snapped. “The Cortés Sword was lost long ago.”

“A valuable sword?” Pete asked.

“Supposedly, Pete,” Pico said, “although I sometimes wonder. It may have been just an ordinary sword that acquired a fabulous legend. It was in our family a very long time.”

“Did it belong to Cortés himself?” Bob asked.

“So our family history says,” Pico answered. “Our ancestor Don Carlos Alvaro, the first Alvaro in the New World, once saved Cortés’s army from an ambush. In gratitude, Cortés presented Don Carlos with the sword. The story is that it was a special ceremonial sword given to Cortés by the King of Spain. It supposedly had a solid gold hilt and was all encrusted with jewels — the hilt, scabbard, even the blade. Rodrigo Alvaro brought the sword here when he settled on this land.”

“What happened to it?” Jupiter asked.

“It vanished in 1846 at the start of the Mexican War, when Yankee soldiers came to Rocky Beach.”

“You mean American soldiers stole it?” Pete exclaimed.

“Probably,” Pico said. “All soldiers in enemy country have a habit of ‘picking up’ valuable items. The army officials later insisted that they had never even heard of the Cortés Sword, and maybe that was true. My great-great-grandfather, Don Sebastián Alvaro, was shot by the Americans attempting to escape from arrest. He fell into the ocean and was never found. The Yankee commander of the Rocky Beach garrison thought that the sword fell into the sea with him. In any case, it vanished. Perhaps it never was so fabulous. Just an ordinary old sword that my great-great-grandfather had with him when he escaped.”

“But,” Jupiter said thoughtfully, “no one really knows what happened to the sword, and someone must have put that old sword cover inside the statue’s mouth, and — ”

“Pico! The hacienda!”

Diego was standing at the edge of the ridge on the far side. Everyone ran to join him, and stared across the fields in horror. The hacienda was on fire!

“The barn’s burning, too!” Uncle Titus cried.

“Hurry!” Pico shouted.

They raced down the slope and across the fields to the flames leaping into the evening sky. The smoke of the burning buildings mixed with the smoke still drifting from the last of the brush fire. A fire truck was parked in the dusty hacienda yard, and grimy fire fighters were trying to get close to the house with a hose. But even as the Alvaros and their friends reached the yard, the roofs of both the house and barn collapsed with a crash. There was nothing of the two buildings left now but burning ruins!

“Hopeless,” a fire captain said to Pico. “Sorry, Alvaro. Sparks must have jumped over from the brush fire.”

“How could that happen?” demanded Pete. “There was hardly any wind!”

“Hardly any at ground level,” said the fire captain. “But there’s often a good breeze just a little way above the ground. Hot air rises from a fire, carrying sparks with it, and the upper-level winds can catch the sparks and carry them quite a distance. I’ve seen it happen before. It wouldn’t have taken much to set fire to the dry old roof timbers in these buildings. And once the fire reached under the roof tiles, the rain couldn’t put it out. If we’d seen the blaze sooner we might have saved something, but with all the smoke… ”

The captain trailed off as two walls of the old hacienda fell in. The flames on the house died rapidly, with nothing left to burn. Pico and Diego stood in silence. The boys and Uncle Titus watched in dismay, unable to think of anything to say.

“The things in the barn!” Pete cried suddenly.

Uncle Titus, Bob, and Jupiter turned to look at the barn. It, too, was a smouldering ruin. Several walls still stood, but everything inside had burned. Everything that Uncle Titus had been going to buy from the Alvaros!

“Everything is lost,” Pico said. “And we haven’t any insurance. It is all over now.”

“We can rebuild the hacienda!” Diego said fiercely.

“Yes,” Pico said, “but how can we pay our mortgage? How can we keep the land to build on again?”

“Uncle Titus?” Jupiter said. “We agreed to buy those things in the barn, so they were as good as ours. I think we must pay for them.”

Uncle Titus hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I think you’re right, Jupiter. A deal is a deal. Pico — ”

Pico shook his head. “No, my friends, we cannot take such charity. I thank you for the generous thought, but we must keep our pride and honour if nothing else. No, we will sell our land to Mr. Norris, pay our debt to our neighbour, and find a home and work to do in town. Or perhaps it is time to return to Mexico.”

“But you’re Americans!” Bob protested. “The Alvaros have been here longer than anyone else!”

“Perhaps,” Jupiter said slowly, “you can find the money you need somewhere else.”

Pico smiled sadly. “There is no way, Jupiter.”

“Maybe there is,” the stocky leader of the Investigators said. “A long shot, but… Do you have to make those mortgage payments right away? And is there somewhere you can live for a while?”

“We can live with Señor Paz, our neighbour!” Diego said.

Pico nodded, “Yes, and I think we can wait a few weeks to pay him, Jupiter, but what —?”

“I’ve been thinking about that Cortés Sword,” Jupiter explained. “If it was stolen during the Mexican War, it should have turned up somewhere in more than a hundred years. I’m sure soldiers would have sold it for cash at once. The fact that it never has shown up makes me wonder if it was really stolen at all. Maybe it was hidden just like that sword cover we found!”

Diego said eagerly, “Pico! I’ll bet he’s right! We — ”

“Craziness!” Pico exploded. “There could be a hundred reasons why the sword has never been seen again! It could have fallen into the sea with Don Sebastián, or simply been accidentally destroyed. Perhaps soldiers sold it to someone whose family has quietly kept it all these years. It could be in China for all we know. You are jumping to conclusions because of that sword cover, but the cover could belong to any number of swords. No, finding the Cortés Sword is a childish fantasy, and we won’t save our ranch with fantasies.”

“That’s all possible,” Jupiter admitted, “but the sword cover didn’t get into the statue by accident. With enemy soldiers in town. Don Sebastián would have had good reason to hide a valuable sword. I think you should at least look for it, and we can help. Pete, Bob and I have experience finding things.”

“They’re detectives, Pico,” Diego said. “Show him, fellows.”

Bob handed Pico their business card. It read:

When Pico looked sceptical, Jupiter handed him a second card. This one said:

This certifies that the bearer is a Volunteer Junior Assistant Deputy co-operating with the police force of Rocky Beach. Any assistance given him will be appreciated.

(Signed) Samuel Reynolds

Chief of Police.

“I see you are detectives,” Pico said, “but it is still a foolish idea. Who could find a sword lost for more than a hundred years?”

“Let them try, Pico!” Diego urged.

“It can’t hurt,” Uncle Titus added.

Pico looked at the ruins of his fine old hacienda and sighed. “Very well, they can try. I will help all I can, but you will forgive me if I am not optimistic. For instance, where will they begin, eh? How? With what?”

“We’ll think of something,” Jupiter said lamely.

Soon after, Hans arrived with the truck. The Alvaros went with Guerra and Huerta to their neighbour Emiliano Paz, and the Investigators rode back to town. In the back of the truck, Pete asked:

“Jupe? Where do we start?”

“Why,” Jupiter said with a grin, “the answer’s in your hand.”

“It is?” Pete looked down. He was holding the old sword cover.

“I didn’t want to raise false hopes,” Jupiter explained eagerly, “but I noticed something. There are small symbols on the metal fittings of the cover. We’ll call Mr. Hitchcock, and maybe he can send us to someone who can identify those markings.”

The stout leader’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve got a hunch what they are already, and if I’m right, we’ll be on our way to finding the Cortés Sword!”